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Week 19 DVOA Ratings

by Aaron Schatz

Once again, it is time for postseason DVOA ratings. As always, the following rules apply:

All 32 teams are ranked, whether they made the playoffs or not.

Teams are ranked in order of weighted DVOA, not total season DVOA. Since weighted DVOA is meant to lower the strength of older games, these ratings do not include Weeks 1-5, and Weeks 6-11 are somewhat discounted.

Only weighted DVOA is listed for offense, defense, and special teams. Total DVOA is also listed, but adding eight games to a 256-game sample doesn't change much.

Teams are treated as having a bye week in any week where they did not play. Since most teams haven't played in two weeks, that means some of the ratings for non-playoff teams can start getting a little unreliable. Really, this is only to be used for playoff teams, the other teams are just there for ranking comparison purposes.

DVOA, as always, takes a long-term view of an NFL team's performance. That means that the games of the last two weeks are just two games among many, so teams may be listed below other teams that they have beaten in the playoffs.

You will find DVOA matchup pages for conference championships on the FO Premium page. Snap counts should be updated as well. And if you have a team in the Football Outsiders 2017 Playoff Fantasy Challenge, you can check out your team right here. Scores should now be updated, including a fix for last week's problem with Julio Jones. (Let us know in the comments if that's still a problem, ok? Thanks.)

* * * * *

To save people some time, we remind everyone to put their angry troll hatred into the official zlionsfan angry troll hatred Mad Libs form:

If you are new to our website, you can read the explanation of how DVOA is figured here. As always, positive numbers represent more points so DEFENSE is better when it is NEGATIVE.

There are no adjustments here for sitting starters in Week 17. The Eagles are not adjusted for Nick Foles replacing Carson Wentz, although we do adjust the ratings that we use in the playoff odds report. At this point, Foles games represent roughly 40 percent of the Eagles' weighted offensive DVOA.

Teams in yellow are still alive in the playoffs. Teams in gray lost this past weekend.

TEAM

WEI.DVOA

LASTWEEK

W-L

WEI OFFDVOA

OFF.RANK

WEI DEFDVOA

DEF.RANK

WEI S.T.DVOA

S.T.RANK

TOTALDVOA

RANK

1

NE

35.5%

1

14-3

29.5%

1

1.8%

17

7.7%

2

24.3%

5

2

MIN

30.1%

3

14-3

14.0%

5

-18.3%

3

-2.2%

22

26.0%

4

3

NO

29.3%

2

12-6

20.9%

3

-4.4%

9

4.0%

10

28.7%

1

4

LARM

26.3%

5

11-6

13.1%

6

-6.0%

7

7.2%

4

27.3%

3

5

BAL

26.2%

6

9-7

4.4%

13

-10.0%

5

11.8%

1

18.5%

7

6

PIT

25.9%

4

13-4

25.6%

2

7.1%

25

7.3%

3

27.4%

2

7

PHI

22.4%

7

14-3

5.3%

11

-19.2%

2

-2.1%

21

24.0%

6

8

LACH

19.6%

8

9-7

16.6%

4

-9.0%

6

-6.1%

29

7.9%

11

9

CAR

15.1%

9

11-6

5.2%

12

-4.5%

8

5.5%

5

13.3%

9

10

JAC

13.0%

10

12-6

1.6%

18

-10.3%

4

1.1%

17

14.7%

8

11

SF

9.5%

13

6-10

9.6%

8

2.2%

19

2.1%

13

-8.3%

20

12

DAL

8.6%

11

9-7

2.3%

15

-1.1%

13

5.1%

6

5.4%

13

13

ATL

7.0%

12

11-7

8.6%

9

1.9%

18

0.3%

18

3.2%

14

14

KC

1.4%

16

10-7

10.0%

7

13.1%

31

4.4%

7

10.0%

10

15

DET

1.3%

15

9-7

8.1%

10

10.5%

30

3.7%

11

5.6%

12

16

SEA

0.6%

14

9-7

3.3%

14

-1.3%

12

-4.0%

25

3.2%

15

TEAM

WEI.DVOA

LASTWEEK

W-L

WEI OFFDVOA

OFF.RANK

WEI DEFDVOA

DEF.RANK

WEI S.T.DVOA

S.T.RANK

TOTALDVOA

RANK

17

ARI

-0.7%

19

8-8

-19.8%

30

-20.6%

1

-1.6%

19

-11.2%

22

18

OAK

-5.7%

17

6-10

-2.0%

19

1.5%

15

-2.2%

23

-6.6%

18

19

TEN

-7.4%

18

10-8

-4.4%

20

4.3%

24

1.3%

16

-8.3%

19

20

IND

-8.1%

22

4-12

-9.0%

24

3.5%

23

4.4%

8

-22.4%

31

21

WAS

-11.5%

20

7-9

-13.6%

28

-4.0%

10

-1.8%

20

-0.5%

16

22

GB

-11.6%

23

7-9

-5.4%

21

8.3%

26

2.1%

14

-3.3%

17

23

CHI

-12.2%

21

5-11

-11.6%

26

2.2%

20

1.6%

15

-15.9%

25

24

CIN

-12.2%

25

7-9

1.9%

17

9.5%

29

-4.6%

26

-12.5%

24

25

TB

-14.2%

24

5-11

1.9%

16

9.1%

27

-6.9%

32

-11.9%

23

26

NYJ

-14.3%

27

5-11

-7.6%

22

0.9%

14

-5.9%

28

-17.3%

26

27

CLE

-14.6%

26

0-16

-8.8%

23

2.5%

21

-3.4%

24

-27.2%

32

28

BUF

-15.3%

28

9-8

-15.5%

29

3.2%

22

3.4%

12

-9.0%

21

29

MIA

-15.8%

29

6-10

-10.9%

25

9.3%

28

4.4%

9

-19.8%

27

30

NYG

-20.1%

30

3-13

-11.8%

27

1.8%

16

-6.6%

31

-22.2%

30

31

DEN

-29.4%

31

5-11

-26.3%

32

-1.9%

11

-5.0%

27

-20.9%

29

32

HOU

-43.2%

32

4-12

-20.5%

31

16.4%

32

-6.3%

30

-20.3%

28

Here are the one-game DVOA ratings for the divisional round. Sometimes in close games, the losing team ends up with a better DVOA than the winning team. That didn't happen this week; instead, the close games actually end up less close than expected in DVOA. Note that the blocked punt ends up as a negative for the Vikings special teams but not as a positive for the Saints special teams; that's one of those things I need to measure better when I get my next chance to update the special teams formulas.

There will be more analysis of the close games in Clutch Encounters later on Monday, and an Any Given Sunday report on Jacksonville's victory over Pittsburgh on Tuesday.

DVOA (with opponent adjustments)

TEAM

TOT

OFF

DEF

ST

ATL

0%

15%

16%

1%

PHI

32%

12%

-19%

0%

TEN

-56%

-34%

19%

-4%

NE

51%

45%

-3%

4%

JAC

43%

53%

10%

1%

PIT

32%

69%

41%

4%

NO

7%

10%

0%

-2%

MIN

37%

23%

-20%

-6%

VOA (no opponent adjustments)

TEAM

TOT

OFF

DEF

ST

ATL

-23%

0%

24%

1%

PHI

21%

13%

-8%

0%

TEN

-69%

-27%

39%

-4%

NE

65%

52%

-10%

4%

JAC

24%

51%

28%

1%

PIT

4%

43%

43%

4%

NO

-17%

-1%

14%

-2%

MIN

5%

11%

-1%

-6%

Posted by: Aaron Schatz on 15 Jan 2018

34 comments, Last at
18 Jan 2018, 11:14am by
Alec B

Comments

After adjustment, those scores are about what it seemed like they should be.

Next week will be interesting. NE's offense is enough better than Jacksonville's defense that they should win handily. MIN looks like to be slightly better than PHI (their defense is more better than Philly's offense than Philly's defense is better than Minnesota offense), but it may not be enough to overcome HFA.

Man, Tennessee was crap. They were reverse Wobegons -- they were below-average at everything.

The DVOA/VOA marks for Vikings/Saints matches my perception, that the Vikings played better, even before the last play. In particular, the Saints were really fortunate to recover the strip sack; I know I would have been lamenting that, absent Diggs scoring a td.

That strip sack was a turning point of sorts. To that point every single thing was going the Vikings way. The very next play was a 20 yard screen pass and from that point on the Saints offence really started to get going. They missed a long FG, and had a tipped int, but you could see the game changing.

The Saints have some amazing young players, Kamara, Thomas, Lattimore. They should be good for a while if Brees doesn't fall off a cliff performance wise.

Yes, we have tended to overlook Brees's age a bit because he's younger than Brady, but he's not that much younger, and he might well need to retire earlier.

That last TD was a killer for what was looking like Brees's best chance to make a 2nd Super Bowl. Had they beaten the Vikings, I would have favored them in Philly. And you know the NFL would have loved to see a Brees vs. Brady Super Bowl.

Hey, it's not too late for Brady to get in on the copper bracelet scheme himself.

To raise an actual question, I wonder if playing his home games indoors (and more road games in warmer climates) might have some sort of impact on Brees's "age curve" as he reaches the end of his career here.

Your second comment was clearly facetious and kind of funny, but I'll assume the first was seriously.

Obviously, *most* QBs, even HoF ones, fall off the performance cliff younger than Brady. The real question should be "what makes you think Brees is going to be an exception playing at an all-pro level at age 40?"

And speaking of all-pro 40 y/o QBs, between Favre's NFCCG for the Vikes, Sunday's Keenumagic, and the Vikings hosting the Saints in the 2018 regular season, is this going to be the next great interdivisional rivalry?

True, although the Vikings' offensive DVOA does not account for Keenum regressing into 'bad Keenum' and throwing a lot of back-foot, wobbly prayers up to be saved by Thielen/Diggs.
Seriously, he started making me really nervous. He was fortunate to not have more interceptions.

Yeah, I saw that. If the Ol' Sean had paid less attention to the fans in the seats, and more to his players on the field, maybe the deepest guy on defense on the last play would have had better technique.

The fearsome and battled hardened Aztec Eagle and Jaguar warriors were some of the fiercest in the Aztec empire. Commonly referred to as the cuauhtlocelotl in ancient Nahuatl, the Eagle Jaguar warriors were part of a military order in the Aztec army that was reserved for the elite. The order was only available to join after the Eagle and Jaguar warriors had proved themselves on the battlefield, and this was no mean feat, it was not every warriors destiny to join this respected order.

If you were to be accepted into the elite order known as the cuauhtlocelotl, you would be in essence a full time warrior for the Aztec society. Benefits and rewards were commonplace, and the Aztec Eagle and Jaguar warriors were highly revered in Aztec society.

The Eagle and Jaguar warriors were hard to miss on the battlefield, their attire and style reflected their name. From the Florentine codex we can see depictions of both classes of warrior wearing intricate suits and head dresses that bring the animals to life, but its unlikely the war suits of these warriors were designed to offer any advantage in battle. It’s thought that the warriors would have worn the same body armour protection as other warriors of their rank for protection underneath. One thing is for sure, their unique war suits would have made the enemy think twice before charging into battle with these mighty Aztecs.

The St. John Bowl - St John's is a university near St. Cloud, northwest of Minneapolis, and the St. John's river flows through Jacksonville.

....

Oh, wait, let's try what they geographically have in common:

Northward Flowing River Bowl. For some odd reasons not many rivers in the united states flow straight (or close to straight) north. Two of the largest that do are the St. John's River in Florida, and the Red River on the Minnesota/North Dakota border.

too much of a stretch? Technically one other NFL team, Buffalo, is also situated on a northward flowing river, albeit a much shorter one.

You're comparing weighted (that is recent) DVOA and full season VOA. That obscures the picture.

If you want to know the regular season strength of schedule in DVOA terms, look to the Team Efficiency page in Statistics, second table.

Jacksonville and Tennessee had the easiest schedules of the final eight by that measure. Atlanta and Minnesota had the hardest. New Orleans faced an average schedule. The other teams faced weaker schedules.

There is some question about whether DVOA's opponent adjustments work exactly right for this purpose. A team might have a significant impact on its own strength of schedule, which would defeat the purpose. But DVOA strength of schedule is as good as anything else we have, IMHO.